The Jewel Of Medina (20 page)

How I’d love to sink my blade into the massive gut of Abu Sufyan himself! At Uhud, he’d increased my hatred with his exultant lies about Muhammad’s death. And then, as we’d straggled in defeat to our camp, he’d mocked us with his reminder:
I will see you at Badr, mighty Prophet! If you dare to fight us again.
If we dared? Our men couldn’t wait to erase the memory of Uhud from people’s minds. And I, who had been practicing my swordplay for more than a year, couldn’t wait to free my
umma
from the ever-present fear of Quraysh, whose leaders had bragged they would kill every man among us.

Abu Sufyan wasn’t the only rival we needed to silence. Ibn Ubayy had increased his attacks on Muhammad, calling him a “lion with no teeth” to everyone who would listen. After that unpleasant encounter with me and Mother of the Poor that day, Ibn Ubayy left us alone. But, in his never-ending effort to make Muhammad look weak, he continued to harass poor Sawdah and Hafsa whenever they went out.

“Muhammad is afraid to confront me, no matter what I do,” he boasted.

By insulting Muhammad’s wives, Ibn Ubayy proved himself the real coward. Others in our city weren’t so timid. The Nadr clan had grown more aggressive every day. Like their kinsmen the Kaynuqah, they traded
with Quraysh, and they resented Muhammad’s claims that he was the Prophet their Jewish Book had foretold.

One night, as Muhammad stood outside their walls conferring with my father and Umar, a group of Nadr leaders tried to drop a huge rock on Muhammad’s head. Ali urged him to execute the entire clan, as a lesson to his other enemies. But Muhammad chose mercy. Instead of killing the Nadr, he directed our warriors to escort them out of town as they had done the Kaynuqah. Their long, slow, caravan trudged past the mosque while crowds of Believers pressed into the street to spit and jeer at them. I stood in the doorway of the mosque with Hafsa, Sawdah, and Umm al-Masakin to watch the sorry show, but I shed no tears for the traitors. Thick carpets, sun-glimmering candlesticks, and enormous sacks of food sagged on their animals’ haunches, leaving no room for anyone to sit but forcing all—women, children, men—to walk beside their beasts. Tears streaked Nadr faces, making me wonder if exile was really preferable to death. But Muhammad could not bear to kill the People of the Book.

“They worship the same God as we do,” he’d told me.

Later we heard how the Nadr had fled directly to the bosom of Quraysh—and laughed at us for letting them go. “The sight of blood makes the mighty Muhammad squeamish,” they were saying. We hoped to see them at Badr, where they’d quickly find out how squeamish we were.

As I walked along the assembling caravan, looking for Muhammad, men in tattered clothing from the tent city greeted me with smiles and nods as they loaded the camels they’d been given for the journey. They were among the first to volunteer for this fight, Umm al-Masakin had told me. “They want to repay the Prophet for his goodness to them,” she’d said.

I stopped to speak with them, but it was Umm al-Masakin they wanted to see. On my visits to the tent city with her, the residents had treated me deferentially, while they greeted Umm al-Masakin with warm embraces. Although I struggled to remember names and still cringed at the infections and sores and foul smells their poverty created, Umm al-Masakin seemed to feel more at home with her tent-dwellers than she did in the
harim
with her sister-wives. Of course, she’d grown up helping the needy. Her mother had been the daughter of a midwife and a poor Bedouin; a great beauty, she’d married an affluent husband but never forgot her beginnings. She and
her daughter spent their days among the poor, delivering their babies and tending to the sick.

“I always feel closest to al-Lah when I am helping others,” Umm al-Masakin said.

Helping the tent dwellers made me feel close to God, also. Working side-by-side with Mother of the Poor brought me an inner peace I’d never imagined possible. And I developed such affection for the sweet, gracious Umm al-Masakin that I wondered how I could have ever distrusted her.

She and I would care for the wounded at Badr, but I had another goal, as well. I wanted to fight, to prove myself a true warrior to Muhammad. If anyone besides lovely widows could catch his glance these days.

For several months Muhammad had been visiting the home of Umm Salama, one of Medina’s most beautiful women. At first, he’d kept company with her injured husband, his milk-brother and friend Abdallah. When Abdallah died of the wound he’d received at Uhud, Muhammad continued to visit his widow, consoling her in her grief. Or so I’d thought. Months later, he was still going to see her, causing whispers in the
umma.

“Umar and Abu Bakr asked to marry the widow Umm Salama and she refused them both, can you believe it?” Sawdah said, cackling over this rumor. “She is preserving herself for the best, by al-Lah! I, for one, will not be surprised when the Prophet brings her home for himself.”

Scanning the caravan for Muhammad now, I found him holding Mother of the Poor awkwardly against his chain-mail suit. I scowled. How disrespectful to the rest of us in his
harim!
But as I drew nearer, I saw that theirs was no passionate clutch. Worry shadowed Muhammad’s eyes like a hood.

“Help her, A’isha. I fear I am not much comfort in these chains,” he said.

That’s when I heard her sobbing. I pulled her close and asked what was wrong.

“Bisar died,” Umm al-Masakin said in a choked voice. “That poor little girl! It was smallpox, A’isha. She was too weak to fight it.” Tears welled in my eyes, also, for the child of the tent city we’d both grown to love. “I remained with her all night, grasping for remedies and fumbling for cures. But I neglected to pray. I thought I could save her, by al-Lah! Now she is lost because of my vanity.”

I
tsked
. “Al-Lah alone decides whether we live or die. That’s what Muhammad says.” I pulled back to give her a stern look. “Giving up your sleep to help another isn’t vanity, Mother of the Poor. Vanity is blaming yourself for her death, as if you had the power to stop it.”

My words rang harsh even to my own ears, but they seemed to work: Umm al-Masakin’s sobs became a sniffle. I helped her onto her camel, but the slump of her shoulders told me she was too exhausted to travel. Although I knew I couldn’t treat the wounded alone, I asked Muhammad if she shouldn’t remain in Medina. I’d find another way to get onto the battlefield.

He stroked his beard, frowning. “The tent-dwellers have asked that Umm al-Masakin accompany us. They think she will bring them luck. They will not fight at Badr without her.”

“Tell them she has sent me in her place.” I drew my sword with a flourish. “I’ll bring not only luck, but skill to the battlefield!”

He laughed and gave me a look so warm I thought I would melt. He reached out to brush my cheek with his thumb.

“My little warrior-bride.”

“Not so little,” I said. “I’m thirteen.”

“Yes, and I see your sword has gotten bigger, as well.” He eyed the blade with its nicks and dents. Umar had never given my child’s sword back to me.
Weapons are not for little girls,
he’d scolded when I’d asked him for it. “I have forgotten to ask Umar to return the one I gave you.”

“I don’t need it anymore,” I said. “This one was clumsy at first, but now I like it better.” I gave him a meaningful smile. “I’m growing up.”

“But you are still too young to fight, Little Red. We do not even allow boys on the battlefield until their fifteenth year.”

“I know I can’t fight.” I gave him my best wide-eyed look. “I only have my sword in case I need it. To protect Umm al-Masakin as she treats the wounded.”

Muhammad grinned. I grinned back. We both knew better.

We rode for four nights to Badr, not bothering to hurry this time. Who cared if the Qurayshi arrived first and blocked the wells from us, as our army did to them last year? We carried extra water skins—and with alLah’s power we’d defeat them no matter what tricks they tried.

I worried, though, about Umm al-Masakin. The first morning I helped
her down from her camel she stumbled against me and then staggered to her tent.

“My energy will improve when I have had some rest,” she said.

But she didn’t improve. Her pale skin pinkened with fever, and her breathing labored as if a heavy stone crushed her chest. I urged Muhammad to send her home, but she convinced him that she was only exhausted from caring for the tent people.

“Take care of her, Little Red,” he said. “Make certain that she does not exert herself.”

I tried, but she insisted on visiting the men from the tent city before we rode each night. The effort it took to drag herself to the back of the caravan, to speak to them in lively tones, and then, leaning on my arm, to walk back to her camel, sapped her energy before our night’s journey even began. After the second day we had passed the midway point between Badr and Medina. Sending her home no longer made sense.

“In you, A’isha, I have the very best caretaker,” she said.

Through the vast, friendless desert we marched, lighted by the glow of torches so brilliant they illumined our way like the sun. Our scouts watched not only for shadows of Bedouin raiders and Qurayshi spies but also for signs of sand storms, especially the dreaded
samoom,
the hot wind of Hell, known to devour entire armies as if the desert were a beast that needed feeding. If Muhammad thought about such dangers, he never let his worries show.

“Would al-Lah desert His faithful as we defend His name?” he said.

As if aided by God’s hand, we passed easily through the cruel desert to the cool well at al-Rawha—forgetting Sawdah’s warnings against
djann
who lurked in its crevices—to al-Safra, with its elegant sun-bleached buildings topped with belvederes, and palm gardens redolent with the sweet scent of glossy-leafed privets.

One
barid
from al-Safra, we passed through a series of palm groves, relishing the shade, to the hills of Badr between which a spring-fed river flowed like the silvered tresses of a moonlit maiden. The vast, sand-swept field on the edge of the little town was devoid of Qurayshi when we arrived, to the delight of our men. They immediately began digging sand to pour into the wells as they had done at the first Badr fight, but Muhammad stopped them.

“We do not want Quraysh to brag that we needed trickery to defeat them this time,” he said.

The rising sun spilled light the color of blood into our eyes as Muhammad led the morning prayer. Umm al-Masakin, her face as pale as the waning moon, prayed next to me, but I barely noticed her. In my prayers I asked al-Lah for the courage to fight bravely that day, while in my heart I hoped for the chance to show Muhammad that I was as capable a warrior as Umm ‘Umara. And as much a woman as any of my sister-wives.

After nearly two years in his
harim
, I knew too well the folly of not consummating our marriage. Eyebrows would lift across the
umma
if the news were to spread. Seeking advice, I’d already confided in Hafsa and my sister, Asma, and I’d turned for consolation to Mother of the Poor. With each new confidante I risked exposure, and for what? Asma’s dance had failed me. Hafsa’s henna had gone unnoticed. And
wars,
the aphrodisiac Umm al-Masakin had given me, had only drawn anxious glances from Muhammad, who’d stared at the weird yellow lotion on my face and asked if I were sick. Impatient with the subtle approach, I tried bluntness.

“It’s supposed to heighten your desire,” I said. He ruffled my hair.

“
Yaa
Little Red, do not be in such a hurry to grow up,” he said. “Enjoy your childhood while you can.” That’s when I knew Sawdah’s stories were true: Muhammad’s interests had turned elsewhere.

After we finished our prayers, I tucked Umm al-Masakin into her bed, then ventured over to Muhammad’s tent—an enormous shelter covered in long, shaggy camels’ hair of rust-red, like my own hair. A cool, moist breeze stroked my skin. I breathed in fresh water and almond flowers. The stoop-shouldered old poet Hassan ibn Thabit strode past, his hands careening as he shouted verses commemorating the first Badr fight:

Would that the people of Mecca knew how we destroyed the unbelievers in their hour of reckoning,
We killed their leaders on our battlefield and when they retired their backs were broken,
We killed Abu Jahl and ‘Utba before him, along with Shayba falling with hands outstretched for sacrifice.
We killed Suwayd, then ‘Utba after him, and Tu’ma too as the dust flew,
How many men we killed of nobility, leadership, respect and good repute among their people.
We left them for yelping animals to attend, later to cook in the hot depths of Hell-fire.

Men cheered and thrust daggers and swords through phantom enemies as Hassan passed. I ducked into Muhammad’s tent. It was too vast for two, set up on tall poles, but it would also serve as his
majlis,
for meetings with his advisers out of the sun and away from the ears of spies. I rolled out a blanket to keep the sand out of our hair and our bed, spread our sheepskin on top of it, and lay down to sleep so soundly I didn’t notice when Muhammad slipped into bed beside me, or when Barirah, the servant girl my parents had sent with me, called my name from outside the tent.

“Mother of the Poor calls for you. Hurry,” she said, awakening us both.

Clutching our robes about us, Muhammad and I ran to Umm al-Masakin’s tent.

“Her skin heats more every hour,” Barirah said to me. “She calls your name.”

Inside, I found Mother of the Poor lying on her back and tossing her damp head from side to side. A smell like sour milk pervaded the tent. I sent Barirah for a wet cloth to dampen her fevered forehead and cheeks. Umm al-Masakin stared at me with eyes like obsidian, shiny and opaque.

“I fear it is the smallpox. Please give me some
khatmi
,” she gasped.

I rummaged through her bundle of clothing and pulled out her medicine bag. Barirah slipped in holding several damp cloths. Muhammad mopped Umm al-Masakin’s face while I pounded the
khatmi
paste, made from the mallow plant, in the mortar with a little vinegar and helped her drink the concoction. I forced a smile, hoping she wouldn’t see my fear.
Khatmi
and vinegar worked wonders for ordinary fevers, but for smallpox it had accomplished few, if any, cures.